Das farbvolle Leben

Feeling blue and red hot for a German phrase using a color? Ch-check it out:

In unserer Sprache sind Farben allgegenwärtig

Wow, Danville is cheap!

Try picking Danville, KY and just about anywhere else . . . the cost of living here is unbelievably low. Hmmmmm.

The Salary Calculator: relocation, cost of living, real estate

Schpagghettti

OK, one more:



"I splash on beats like sauce on spaghetti."

Freaky Streakin'

The one-liners are just so fabulous. From my equivalent of a motivating workout anthem for writing, The Beastie Boys' To the 5 Boroughs:



"'Cause I'm a freaky streaker like Winnie-the-Pooh. T-shirt and no pants, and I dance the Boogaloo."

What's up with the move from my last post, on fetishism, to this one? Is Pooh's love for honey "natural"? Does he fetishize the goo(h)? If so, what's the true focus of his affection, a tree? And is a tree a thing?

Fetishism

I got a new office chair today. I know blogging tends to be fetishistic, but I won't give in. It's just a better office chair than my old one, which made my legs go to sleep over time. It's red. My desktop is orange. And my office guest chairs are gold and red, so they look another shade of orange. It's all a bit much. I like oranges at least, and Mindy's hair is orange, and red is OK. What's red? Cranberries, blood and apples. Oh, and blood. And that weird red cake.

Gallery of Oddness

Here are some of the champion beardsters . . .

Gallery of Contestants and Champions

Bartweltmeister, Fußballweltmeisterschaft and other German attempts to take over the world

Is it time to grow a beard?

Bartkategorien nach den Bestimmungen des VDB präsentiert vom Bartweltmeister

Chip(ping away) & Dip(ping in)

Some of the insanity at work has cooled down, so that helps, and I found out I got into a summer program for Holocaust educators, which should help my case for summer money for a trip to Berlin and Auschwitz for Mindy and me, but I'm still feeling exhausted and a little nervous pretty much all the time. I don't know how to find more time in the day and not get sick.

Mindy's been a trouper as always, doing everything she can to help out. I wish I could just get past the diss. so we could spend more time together and she would stop having to carry such a heavy burden. Well, it'll be done by the summer, so hopefully that's soon enough. I don't know how else to conceive of it without slowing down. I hope she understands.

Me hongray.

Stupid asteroid

So I forgot to mention the best example of my bizarre mental state. (Can one ever have a basaar mental state? Maybe that's my problem: to listen to the Jill Scott song that makes me feel good or that one by Beastie Boys, "Hey F . . . You" or maybe an angry-weird okgo thing.)

So a commercial comes on for some sort of insurance, maybe somehow tied to famers. A little kid asks his dad what will happen to the house they are sitting in front of if it is destroyed by fire. The dad replies that they'll build another one. Then maybe the kid suggests another potential disaster like a flood or something else from a summer blockbuster movie directed by a German-American. Again, they'll build another house. Daddy, what happens if an asteroid lands on the house? They'll build again. But Daddy, what happens if an asteroid lands on you? And then I teared up. Whatever. Besides, weren't the wheels in the dad's mind turning along the lines of: IS MY SON ON THE VERGE OF SOME REALLY VIOLENT BEHAVIOR?

Program chair? How about program rug? Or program toilet?

This has been quite a week . . . work is tough (I hate being a boss, even if I'm usually my sole employee), the diss. has slowed, friends aren't getting jobs, and teaching sometimes seems like my least favorite chore. At least it occasionally improves my mood.

I've started thinking more seriously about changes in my career, either in terms of place or career path. Maybe this isn't for me, or I need something I care about a little less. I thought a vocation like teaching was a good fit, but I'm finding it more frustrating, political and obsessing than I had ever expected. (The stupid thing is that it's not the teaching that has me down but rather everything else.) The bright side about the trouble at work is that with an attitude like mine, the problem actually seems less significant than it would if I weren't entertaining such thoughts.

Things are so bad at the moment that I barely cared that Carolina lost to Dook last night. It was frustrating, but compared to work it seemed insignificant. For me to say that about a UNC loss to Duke is really something. I need to rub my team-signed ball a bit and think positive thoughts about beating UConn this weekend. We'll take care of those dogs and then squish the dookie right out of the Dean Dome.

Motor FM: Live von Berlin

Here's a German alternative radio station I came across this weekend. Not bad if occasionally a little hard for me. Only very occasionally, though. Lot's of good saccharine Europop.

Motor FM

Oreos and the Federal Budget

You know the oreo thing from before the last election . . . there's a new one now. Check it out.

Oreos and The Federal Budget - TrueMajorityACTION

So what's "konibono" anyway?

It's more than an imaginary state or even an imaginary state of mind: it's a paracosmos I came up with in 4th grade. I first created the word as an alternative swear word, enganging in some early-80s elementary school Deconstruction by expressly allowing the word to mean everything, nothing and anything in between. Then it became an imaginary country, then an imaginary planet. My friends and family members were all cabinet officers, Karl Grill was the VP, and I was elected time and time again (but democratically, mind you) as el Presidente. (This was before I knew about proportional representation.) So that's "konibono." More on the "democratic socialist" part later.